Spirits
by MessengerOfDreams
Summary: The war is only half the story. The real battle begins when the flags are lowered and no gun can save you. Post-AW:DS. Oneshot series. Story I: Curious Eyes. "She needed a drink, she'd already had four, and you felt more lost with each one."


**I've really need to write in Advance Wars, in my own signature style. I'm gonna tackle as many characters in as many oneshots as I can.**

**Hope this doesn't suck.**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing, regret nothing, and let them forget nothing.**

_**Story One: Curious Eyes**_

"I need a drink."

You hold your tongue before you can blurt out that she's already had three of them. Somehow, you don't think you should mess with a drunk Sasha (she's unnerving enough sober). You watch helplessly as she flags down the bartender once more, pearl necklace swinging loosely around her neck. You take another small sip of your lemonade, feeling strangely pathetic.

"You sure you don't want anything?"

You shake your head, toying with the sad little umbrella used to embellish your drink. You're feeling strangely silent tonight, but truth be told you're rather overwhelmed. The second she went through her first drink, you had a feeling many more would follow. Even stranger than your silence is that, despite a faint alarm in the back of your head, you didn't interfere. Sasha is a strong, compelling woman who is smart enough to lead an entire army to success multiple times. Sure, you did the same, but with this umbrella-wielding lemonade sitting across from a freshly delivered beer, you can't help but feel like a child in the presence of a towering adult.

"Christ, Jake. I thought you of all people would know when to loosen up a little."

Out of the corner of her eye, she gives you that glare. It's a cocktail of surprise, annoyance, disapproval, and just that perfect little glint of curiosity that always attracted you to her. It was always that sense of curiosity, something so unfitting to someone who seemed to know it all and was so assured of it. You still can't find the words to respond, so you just shrug.

"A man like you, never had a drink in your life before?"

No amount of drink has or could take away the firmness in her voice, spiked with the brisk native Blue accent that fits her so well. Yet, there's something about it that rolls a lot smoother than it did before, like whiskey on the rocks. Even now, on her one stool, she seems to physically loosen up, her proper, rigidsitting position that she drilled into Colin abandoned as she leans against the bar, legs dangling over the edge, lazily kicking like a child sitting above a pier.

Finally, you feel compelled to answer.

"I'm not much of a drinker, Sash. Personal beef."

"You don't need a reason," she replies, taking another drink of the inelegant beer. Straight out of the can, at that. You knew taking an elegant woman like Sasha to that old hole in the wall restaurant was a risky idea, but she insisted. She'd never traveled- for casual reasons, at least- and even if it was just to the sticks, it was okay. She knew how much these humble, dried-up plains meant to him, and that alone made it interesting to even a high-class woman like her. Somehow the Sasha who encouraged wholeheartedly such a humble proposition, planning an impromptu jet trip over to the other side of the basin to little old Skitcreek with more excitement than she cared to let on, seemed different from the weary, world-torn woman who took a swig of beer as if it was water.

You don't want to press the issue, so you divert the conversation. Noticing that the tab connecting the ends of her pearls were starting to give way, you awkwardly point at them (not taking into account that they draped over her chest). "Uh, Sash. Your pearls."

She raises an eyebrow, smirking. "I'm not that drunk yet."

You realize your faux pas. "No, your necklace. It's about to skip town."

"Oh. This?" She skips the formalities and yanks it off all the way. "It's kind of pathetic, really."

You try and look at that pearl necklace, something easily costing more than the dim bulb lighting it reflects, and envision it as pathetic. It's not a mindset you can get into; as a kid you'd kill for a necklace like that, or at least the cash it raked in.

"It's… it's nice," you choke out, not sure if there's anything you can say that will make you look sane in the eyes of someone who, to you, has become anything but.

"The necklace? I guess…" She holds it above her, gazing into it. After a few contemplative seconds, she concludes "Yeah. It's nice." After that, she hands it to you, patting your hand softly as you take it, confused.

"I'll keep it safe…" you mumble unconsciously, barely noticing that your gaze is not on the necklace, but its (former?) owner. You can't help it, you're used to keeping things safe. Family, countries, secrets...

"I don't need it," she replies, and you jolt, knowing that your inner monologue escaped you and, as you'd expect, she caught it.

"Sharp as a tack. You don't miss a thing, do you?"

"Afraid not."

You wonder if she even notices that she's slumped against your shoulder. The beer is thankfully still on the counter, but years of experience deep seeded down within your subconscious work against you and you prop her up, calmly repeating her name a few times.

"Idiot," she whispers, faintly whispering. "I'm awake."

"Course," you bluff. "Totally knew that."

"I'm a horrible flirt," she admits. "Almost as bad as you are a liar."

You knew that the very fact that she accepted your date and the level of engagement she had shown from the moment the plane touched down contained romantic inclinations returned within it. This isn't how you expected it to blossom, though. That familiar stench, that ugly stench of too-much-beer that you had grown weary of before returns with something beautiful that you had grown fond of. And here they are, both of them, trying to lay against you, attempting to seduce you. They both want you, you only want one.

Before you can stop yourself, you ask, "Babe, are you okay?"

She doesn't respond. She just gives a small, embarrassed little grin, as if to say, _well, look where I found myself again. _

You don't know what to do. It's only four beers- you've seen worse- but it's unnerving. She's finally loosening up but it makes you feel more out of control than the rigid, muted stare she would give you in war rooms as you would spout off battle plans in the slang of a backwoods hick who wanted to be a big city boy longer than he was willing to admit.

"Those pearls…" she muses, either wistful or distant, maybe both. "You can keep them. I don't need them."

"It's okay," you insist.

"I don't need them."

"It's okay."

"I don't _need them_."

"I don't either," you insist, feeling stupider as you go. "They're yours."

"It's pathetic," she repeats from earlier, drawing the word out. "You know I could throw those pearls onto the ceiling fan and let them rain everywhere in here. Fall in everyone's drink. They could all take that one pearl and make it more useful than I could. I don't need them."

"I think you're losing _your _pearls."

"I'm just trying to be honest."

The pearls in your pocket feel like they each weigh a thousand pounds. "What would we do with these, anyway?"

"Keep them for your troubles," she says dismissively, pushing herself off of you and reattending to her drink. You're this close from taking it away from her, but you don't know if you can bring yourself to. Somehow, even now, in this aggravatingly familiar situation, you don't want to patronize her. She's a perfectly strong woman.

"I didn't bring you here for you to pay me," you tell her, trying to be more gentle this time. "You know why I brought you here."

"Because you love me." It's said so absentmindedly, so brusquely, that it's either established fact or unimportant. The weight from the pearls seems to move from your pocket to your chest. It's not entirely true; you'd be damned before you gave your heart away that easily. That doesn't mean you don't want it to be true, or to make it true, that there wasn't more behind it.

"Because I want to find a new start. You know, the war's over and all that jazz."

"The war's never over, comrade." With that, she takes another drink.

"It's felt the most over that it has ever been." As the words come out, they feel like they've turned into rocks. You look around, as if trying to find inner strength. Maybe that's why she finds that beer so tempting. You swallow, clearing your throat. She gives you another wary look out of the corner of her eye.

"I mean… It's more than I could have hoped for." Slowly, you force yourself to make eye contact. "So, y'know, I wanted to get my life back and start it over. And…"

She puts her hand on your shoulder, raising an eyebrow, the curiosity in her eyes aflame.

"Sash, I wanted you to be a part of that, cause you're a straight-up gal, and..." It doesn't hurt to say, but it's difficult to say, because you don't know if she will remember or even care at this point. The more you think about it, the cheesier it sounds, like the prelude to a credits scene for the great grand war that was really, really awful and, just like she said, doesn't feel over.

She takes your hand and gives you that look again. It's almost like she's sober for a moment, and that curious twinkle tints a look of crypticism and disconnect.

"You're a nice boy, Jake. I'd never thought I'd meet a man take a woman with a nation's fortune in her pocket to dinner and insist on paying even as she went through multiple drinks. You have my mother's pearls in your pocket and you keep insisting on giving them back to me. The funny part is, I've never met someone as natural as you in my entire life."

You don't know what to say. You're turning as orange as the emblem on the flag you pulled from mast far too many times. "I guess… out here you learn to be good to people. Help each other through rough times. Don't be scared to give cause you'll lose it anyway. And it becomes habit."

She leans into you, whispering sweetly, "Old habits die hard."

"That was my mother's excuse," you whisper back bitterly.

You close your eyes, but you can still feel her looking at you, smelling like a thousand sordid memories, her hair draping on your neck, her hand still softly connected to yours. It's so sweet, yet so bitter. It doesn't mix into bittersweet- it isn't a mild medium; it's a kiss with a fist.

Regardless, you still want to talk to her. You just can't let it go.

"Those were your mother's pearls?"

Like steam from a broken engine, she exhales sharply, as if exhausted. Before you can apologize, she says, "Thirteen years ago, maybe. I don't count."

You think of your mother. Seventeen years ago, and you have counted. Somehow, this cycle makes you all the more frustrated. "Why would you throw those away? I mean, it seems like something you'd keep." You wish you had something to keep.

"Eh…" she thinks it over for a moment. "I just feel like putting on that necklace, I can see my mother looking down from heaven, scowling down upon me. Especially right now. What a mess…"

She sighs like a dying engine.

"We should go," she finally whispers.

You nod, opening your eyes and getting up. You pull her off the stool, and she walks with you. She's a little dizzy, a little disoriented, but she still walks with confidence even though as you look behind her to make sure she doesn't fall over, her eyes say otherwise. Yet, even through that self-aware, dreary, distant gaze of embarrassment, there's still that undying bit of curiosity.

Against your better judgment, you still want her.

You leave Killian's bar, and she's right behind. Your truck, humble, rusted, and beloved, waits outside. You remember her at the beginning of the day, climbing in with no hesitations even as it sputtered and gave out. You wonder where her mind is at now, if she'll be okay getting into this hunk of junk, if it'll even get them where they need to go, where they need to go.

You look at her again. She smiles, gesturing grandly at the stars. A few seconds later, she's sitting up against the back of the truck, looking up at all of them.

"You know…" she mutters, "sometimes it's almost worth all of this…"

You walk back next to her, looking at the same sky and still seeing two different things.

"Sometimes?"

She frowns, furrowing her brow, as if to think. Eventually she settles on "Sometimes." That's all she says before allowing you to drape your arm around her once more.

The only conversation that remains are the crickets in the cornfields around them, chattering on about those two humans sitting on the back bumper of the truck. Two incognito war heroes sitting above a WAR IS HELL bumper sticker and another that read WE SUPPORT OUR TROOPS IN ORANGE STAR long before you joined the army, but not before you had a reason to join. You sit there, the weight of her world now on your thigh and the weight of your world now on her neck, wondering if she has as many reasons to drink as you have not to.

"Looks like war never does end," you mumble, the night air exhausting you.

Finally, she closes her eyes, taking all of the curiosity within them and leaving her frown.

"We should be so fortunate."

**Hope you enjoyed the read.**

**I should not be writing summaries at midnight.**

**Here's hoping I have an idea for Jess next time.**

**~MoD**


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